Dan Cushman Reader
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University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2001 Dan Cushman reader Brent D. McCann The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation McCann, Brent D., "Dan Cushman reader" (2001). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 1973. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/1973 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY The University of Montana Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. **Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature Date: /? // /& / Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. 8/98 THE DAN CUSHMAN READER by Brent D. McCann B.A., The University of Montana, 1995 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts The University of Montana 2001 Approved by: Chairperson (J DeaiT, Graduate School (o - - o\ Date UMI Number: EP34021 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Dissertation Publishing UMI EP34021 Copyright 2012 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest" ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT McCann, Brent D., M.A., May 2001 Journalism The Dan Cushman Reader Director: Carol Van Valkenburg tAj This thesis examines the life and career of Montana author Dan Cushman. Primary research sources were personal interviews with Dan Cushman, now 91, and Cushman's writing, which spans a period of more than seventy years. Cushman is known best for his novel Stay Away, Joe, which saw national attention in the early 1950s and went on to be a Broadway production and a movie starring Elvis Presley. He wrote many other novels as well, including The Silver Mountain, which won the Spur Award for best historical novel of 1958, and The Grand and the Glorious, which made a top-ten list for 1963. Cushman's career began when he was a teenage correspondent in Big Sandy, Montana, during the 1920s for the Great Falls Tribune. Later he worked as an adman and pulp fiction writer before becoming a novelist. He included much of his life's experiences in his novels. Much of Cushman's best work is comedy. By the 1970s Cushman's markets dried up and he then made a living by reviewing books. Lately his pulp writing has been republished as books. Cushman believes writers should focus on the complexity of people. He also doesn't proclaim to deliver any answers with his work. But he says when writing he always strove for "truth in the larger sense" and that any success he attained as a writer is "due to a genuine pleasure, or at least interest, in the foibles of people." Although he saw most of his success early in his career, Cushman always remained devoted to the craft and never regretted becoming a writer. In 1996 Cushman received an award from Gov. Marc Racicot for his contribution to the state's humanities. He received another local award for his writing in 1998. Still, whether or not his writing will stand the test of time is not clear. Some people now see Stay Awav. Joe as an unfair portrayal of Indians. With this thesis I hope to clear up any misconceptions about Cushman and provide insight into his better books. This thesis concludes that as Cushman faces the sunset of his career, having written.more than thirty books and received numerous awards, he doesn't know what his legacy will be. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I A NEW TOWN FOR EVERY YEAR 11 II FROM COLLEGE STUDENT TO PULP WRITER 30 III A WRITER AMONG AUTHORS 50 IV STAY AWAY, JOE 72 V STRIKING INDIVIDUALITY, SOLID ACHIEVEMENT . 93 VI THE OLD COPPER COLLAR AND THE SILVER MOUNTAIN 110 VII WHOOP-UP AND GOODBYE OLD DRY 126 VIII DUST, TRAFFIC, AND DEATH OF THE WESTERN ... 147 IX BROTHERS IN KICKAPOO 155 X THE GRAND AND THE GLORIOUS AND HARD TIMES 172 XI THE GREAT NORTH TRAIL AND OTHER NONFICTION 194 XII BOOK REVIEWING, ELVIS, AND SELF-PUBLISHING . 205 XIII CONSISTENCIES AND LOSSES 222 XIV GODDAMNIT, SKUNKED AGAIN! 239 XV ON WRITING 249 EPILOGUE 253 SOURCES CONSULTED 260 iii INTRODUCTION ROCKY BOY'S INDIAN RESERVATION Almost fifty years ago a novel by Montana writer Dan Cushman came to this small Montana Indian reservation in the northcentral part of the state, and many readers found in it realism they had never seen before in print. One couple boxed up Stay Away, Joe and sent it to their son overseas. John Sunchild was an airborne ranger at the time, involved in the Korean conflict. "I enjoyed it," Sunchild said, describing the book's portrayal of the Rocky Boy's Reservation as "accurate." Dan Cushman is the author of more than 30 books, but his most celebrated—and most controversial—is Stay Away, Joe. This book was first published in 1953 and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection for April of that year. Later, it was the basis for the 1958 Broadway adaptation Whoop-Up. as well as the 1968 movie Stay Away, Joe, starring Elvis Presley. Regardless of its past popularity, today some writers criticize it as being inaccurate and unfair to Indians. That's not, however, an assessment shared by Indians who see a familiarity, if not a reality, in what's depicted in the book. Sunchild, 70, is the chief executive officer of the National Tribal Development Organization, headquartered at Rocky Boy. Not long ago he was tribal chairman of the Chippewa Cree, the tribe that calls Rocky Boy home. "There's a lot of history in that book," Sunchild said. 1 It illustrates how different the reservation was back then, he said. The government played a more paternalistic role in those days than it does now, he said, just as it does in the book. It was common for Indians to receive a herd of cattle like the family does in the story, he said. Sunchild also said the characters in the story are very similar to people he once knew, but they are long gone. He said he respects the book's realism and the author's style. "He is a devil-may-care guy," Sunchild said. "He said things other people wouldn't."1 Sybal Sangrey, about twenty years younger than Sunchild, remembers how her parents and other older folks were taken aback by how real the story was. "My mother didn't like the book because it was too close to reality," Sangrey said. The book shows a time gone by, she said, a time when Indians were coming to terms with the reservation lifestyle. In the reservation's early days, she said, many Indians couldn't grasp what ownership meant. It was a foreign idea to them, especially land ownership. She described those days as "a transition in poverty." But Sangrey, who works for the Tribal Health Board, is fond of the book. She likes its sense of humor and sense of community. "It's got a lot of truth in it," Sangrey said.2 1 John Sunchild, Stay Away. Joe reader, interview by author, 3 May 2001, by phone from Rocky Boy, Mont. 2Sybil Sangrey, Stay Away. Joe reader, interview by author, 4 May 2001, by phone from Rocky Boy, Mont. 2 Sangrey's husband, John Colliflower, is a cattle rancher and is convinced that the author must have lived among the people he wrote about. "He had to be right in there living with them, partying with them and drinking with them because it's all true," he said. He sounded a little melancholy when he thought about the earlier days and said, "I got to see some of it." The characters are real, Colliflower said, but you won't find their types around the reservation anymore. "It was a different kind of people back in them days," he said. "It's a good little piece of history." Colliflower, a Gros Ventre, was a kid living on the neighboring Fort Belknap Indian Reservation when he first read the book. He said everybody there liked it and he remembered how a copy of it would go from one house to another. "They passed it all over," he said. "One family got done with it and they'd pass it on to another."3 John Mitchell Jr., a student at Rocky Boy's Stone Child College, has read the book six or seven times. He has many friends who also like to reread the story from time to time. Mitchell said while the book has good humor, the alcoholism and "handout disease" evident in the book is still "very real" on the reservation.